I saw this video at St. Eutychus dot com.
i think Stephen Fry might have it over David Mitchell!
I like Fry’s idea about the “Free and happy use of words” where things might not be pretty as such, as long as are pleasurable. He rails (to my surprise) against the “grammatical pedants,” imploring, instead, that we look beyond the veneer into the soul of the work. What is the author actually saying? Is it good, even if it’s not “correct.”
During my paternity leave I’ve knocked off a fair few books. Don’t worry, I wont use “The Hunger Games” series as a case in point. I did, however, read Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions.” Kurt is the classical example of a guy who might drive a pedant crazy. Oddly shaped sentences, bits out of place, illustrations instead of words.
But boy does he write beautifully.
I want to let the “tripping of the tip of my tongue against the tops of my teeth transport me to giddy euphoric bliss.”
How ’bout you?
Tim Goldsmith 